assured the President yesterday we will do everything we can. On the other issues we will get to them as fast as we can.

We have five bills on energy here that we are going to move, the Alaska pipeline will be coming up for a vote, hopefully, Monday or Tuesday. The mandatory allocations bill, which was agreed to yesterday in conference and which will come up hopefully Monday or Tuesday. We have the pending matter before us, the emergency bill, which we hope will be on the floor Tuesday or Wednesday. We have the $2 billion research and development bill which I hope we will have out of the committee this coming week, and up on the floor. And we have the $5 billion which is the strategic reserve bill. In addition, of course, we have a backlog of others. So we have our work cut out for us right now.

Senator Curtis asked that his statement be placed in the record, and without objection it is so ordered.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CARL T. CURTIS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to have the opportunity to present to the Committee in connection with the emergency legislation now pending before it a specific example of the type of authority that is needed in this legislation in order to enable the Federal government and the State of Nebraska to cope with an emergency electric energy problem in Nebraska.

The problem was brought to my attention by the Nebraska Public Power District, a publicly-owned electric utility serving 357 communities and 27 rural districts in 83 of the 92 counties in Nebraska.

The Nebraska Public Power District owns and operates a 25-year-old coalfired generating plant called Kramer Station located at Bellevue, Nebraska.

Dust collectors have been installed at the Kramer Station that will eliminate approximately 83 percent of the particulates emanating from this 110-megawatt plant. The Federal Environment Protection Agency has notified the District that pursuant to the existing Clean-Air Act the District must install high-efficiency particulate removal equipment in order to obtain permission to operate the Kramer Station Plant after January 1, 1974. To meet the requirement, modifications will have to be made in the plant at a cost estimated between 13 million and 17 million dollars including debt service. These modifications cannot be completed before mid-1976. Meanwhile, the District has under construction near Sutherland, Nebraska, a new power plant, designed to meet all EPA air quality standards. When this plant is completed in 1977, the District plans to shut down the Kramer Station because its electric generating capacity will be replaced by production from the new plant for purposes of serving electric users throughout the State of Nebraska, including the Eastern Nebraska area now served by the Kramer Station Plant.

The Nebraska Public Power District is a sub-division of the State of Nebraska and considers it unreasonable, uneconomical, and unnecessary to spend vast amounts of its rate payers' money to improve the Kramer Station Plant in view of the very limited number of years of operational life remaining in the Kramer facility.

Even with the installation of emission control equipment to meet present EPA standards, the practical life of the Kramer Station is about six years, and the installation of this emission control equipment would involve a project spanning nearly three years of that time.

Unless the Nebraska Public Power District can continue generating at 110 megawatts from the Kramer Station Plant beyond January 1, 1974 the State of Nebraska will be faced with serious electric power shortages,

On October 31, 1973 representatives of the District met with Environmental Protection Agency officials to discuss the problem. They were told that EPA was sympathetic but that the Agency has no latitude under existing law to negotiate a solution short of either closing down the plant or installing the extremely expensive emission control equipment that would allow the plant to operate for another 4, 5, or 6 years.

It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that the legislation now being considered by your Committee contains authority for the Administrator of EPA to suspend the secondary air quality standards so that the Kramer Station Plant could continue to operate.

I respectfully urge that the appropriate provisions of this legislation be enacted into law and further that any required supplementary regulations be issued implementing the law in order to enable the Nebraska Public Power District to meet the electrical power needs of the people of Nebraska during this period of critical emergency. I respectfully submit that older generating plants should be granted variances of this type until such time as new facilities meeting Federal air pollution standards can be constructed. I urge the Committee to take this specific problem of the Nebraska Public Power District into consideration in its deliberations on this important emergency legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. Governor, we are delighted to welcome you back to the committee and you are the Chairman of the Board here. You proceed in your own way and we will go from there.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN A. LOVE, DIRECTOR, ENERGY POLICY OFFICE

Governor LOVE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I would like to express not only my appreciation but that of the President for the prompt, nonpartisan cooperative approach you have taken to this problem. We look forward to working with you.

I can't help but agree, too, on Senator McClure's comment that when we get around to assessing the blame that there is going to be plenty to hand out to everybody, and unfortunately it is not going to produce a barrel of oil this winter, on the blame. So I would like to start, perhaps repetitively, but very briefly stating the situation as we see it.

As the chairman has said and we all know, we face a potential short fall of some 3 million barrels, and 3 million barrels of oil measured against our 1972 average consumption of some 17 million barrels a day. It won't fall equally on all the products and our current estimates indicate that on the distillate fuels we have a short fall looking at us of about 450,000 barrels per day or about 11 percent. Residual fuel oils about 500,000 barrels per day or about 13 percent. Jet fuel about 100,000 barrels per day or 13 percent. Gasoline this current winter season may be 500,000 barrels per day or 7 percent.

What all this means, of course, is there is a very urgent need to respond to making sure this kind of shortage is dealt with as forcefully, adequately, and effectively as possible in order to provide an assurance that we won't tip over into a potentially very real and serious problem.

It is true, with conservation, immediate government action, including legislation, this legislation, and cooperation, and I need to stress that, from every American, the impact may not be too bad. But unless we do have those various parts of the solution, we run some very serious risk with the shortfall of this magnitude.

We are talking about not only a potential of cold homes and a lack of gasoline, but a potential of a very serious disruption in our economy. It simply points up and emphasizes the need for quick congressional response, as the chairman has said, and the rest of you agreed, to permit the President to respond quickly and with some flexibility.

The problem I notice in the few months I have been in it has changed dramatically. There is no guarantee that it won't change dramaticall

again, and it points up to me the need for flexibility to respond in a timely manner to circumstances that we face in the weeks and months ahead.

This is not necessarily a 1-month or a winter emergency It can indeed continue for some period of time and although I know that there is some concern that this not become a permanent regulatory measure, I would at least urge you to consider the fact that it needs to be of sufficient duration that we can respond to the problems that do occur in the year and perhaps years ahead.

You will remember that at least in one suggestion that we presented, we indicated the year's limitation should perhaps have the proviso that it can be extended on notification to the Congress.

Our current authority to deal with this type of emergency is limited. I think you know we have the Defense Production Act of 1950 which does give authority to allocate and ration all materials, petroleum, and petroleum products. But it is geared to a wartime kind of response. We have the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 and it gives authority on prices and general allocation authority. And the Export Administration Act of 1960 in regard to export controls. But these authorities, in our opinion, are not adequate to permit a President to respond in a timely fashion to an energy emergency or to any future energy emergency.

Specifically, the current environmental laws do not provide sufficient flexibility for emergency action. There is no authority to move quickly or to supersde State or local regulations, if necessary. The President does not have the authority to direct Federal, State, or local administrators to reduce energy consumption, such as reductions in speed limits, reduced commercial operating hours, and that kind of conservation approach. There is insufficient authority during an energy emergency to take actions to reduce energy consumption and increase supplies. I will speak to that very briefly but more specifically in a

moment.

The President, under these current acts, does not have the authority to require production from naval petroleum reserves. He also does not have authority under the current acts to force conversions from one fuel to another, specifically coal, and to correspondingly require associated equipment conversions.

You well know we have been working with Congress to develop this emergency legislation. As a result of our work today we favor the following specific provisions as a part of this and any other act.

One, exemption from the National Environmental Policy Act. Actions taken under the Energy Act, the Emergency Act, should be exempt from NEPA, although a less formal environmental evaluation should be made as soon as possible, but within 60 days after the action is initiated. However, a NEPA evaluation should be required after 1 year if the action is to continue longer than that time.

I think it is apparent to all of us with the current requirements of the environmental impact statement of NEPA and the hearings and the procedural time, it would be simply impossible to move quickly enough to respond to the kind of emergenceis that we see this winter. We need new authority for regulatory agencies. I believe that one, agencies should be directed to consider energy use and conservation as a part of their public interest determinations.

Two, in the case of transportation, agencies be authorized, after summary hearings, to adjust a carrier's operating authority in such respects as: number of trips, points served, and rate schedules, and

Three, in the case of the FPC, be authorized, for the duration of the energy emergency to suspend the regulation of prices of new production of natural gas.

Four, in the case of the AEC, be empowered to grant a temporary license without a public hearing, but subject to all safety and other requirements of its act.

On the federally mandated conservation measures, we believe that the President should be authorized to restrict on a voluntary or mandatory basis, including, but not limited to the following kinds of actions, restrictions on the public and private use of energy by such measures as limitation and essential uses, office hours, temperatures in buildings, and so forth, elimination of nonessential uses, decorative lighting, and so on, and the use of transportation controls perhaps including new speed limits.

We believe the President should be authorized to delegate this particular kind of authority to State and local officials. A provision, we believe, also should be made for using highway trust funds to improve mass transit systems and projects, particularly in the purchase of additional buses and other rolling stock.

In the area of exemption from certain procedures in granting variances under the environmental laws and authority for a Federal override of State laws and regulations, we believe that for the duration of the emergency, the President, acting through the Environmental Protection Agency, should be authorized when necessary to carry out the purposes of the act, to grant exemptions or variances to stationary sources from Federal and State air quality standards and to grant similar exemptions or variances from water quality standards.

Special provision should be made for some type of continuing or extending exemption from air standards for sources which have undergone fuel conversions but sources receiving these variances should still be required to have responsible actions taken to reduce the impact on the environment.

We believe, as I have said, that the President should be authorized to initiate full production in Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1 at Elk Hills, and to provide for exploration and future development of the naval petroleum reserves.

We believe the President should be authorized or mandated to require nationwide use of daylight saving time throughout the year.

The President should be authorized to allocate, and if necessary ration, energy supplies, establish priorities for use, and establish rationing systems for end users of energy.

The President should be authorized to order conversion of any fuel-burning installation to convert from the use of one fuel to another and to effectuate such equipment conversion as is necessary to be practical even beyond the duration of an energy emergency. This is true particularly in the coalfield. An exemption that could last only 30 days or 6 months, as someone has said there are not any 6month coal mines that can be opened. It would need to extend beyond that period of time.

The area of legal and administrative provisions. Any new Presidential authority to respond to an energy emergency should contain provision for delegation of authority, penalties, injunctive relief, jurisdiction of State courts, authorizations, and administrative provisions.

In regard to the existing laws, the President should be empowered to exercise any authority contained in the Defense Production Act, the Economic Stabilization Act, and the Export Administration Act even though they might otherwise have expired.

These are the general emergency provisions which I believe are critical and essential if we are to deal with this problem of this crisis. Now very briefly again some specific comments on S. 2589. Certainly we want to reiterate we support strongly the intent and many, if not most of the provisions of the bill. It is certainly a major step in the right direction. But, first, to repeat, I wonder if the perspective is not too short termed and the short-term perspective runs the risk of resulting in too narrow a definition of authority and could tie the President's hands.

Second, on authority to grant waivers from environmental standards, we believe that the provisions are too restricted. We did grant, I think we might as well face it, we did grant waivers from primary standards, air standards last year, and we expect to and in all reality have to do it again this year. We know that the burning of some coal and higher sulfur petroleum products will violate primary air quality standards. It is essential that we have clear authority in EPA to grant waivers in a timely manner. It must be able to act, move rapidly, we believe, without notice or hearings, must be able to override State and local laws and regulations, if necessary. Must be able to grant waivers for periods probably longer than 1 year, particularly, as I say, for coal. If not, in our view, we run a risk of making a mockery of our current environmental laws and regulations if we leave them on the books and then, in effect go ahead and violate them. We will do everything possible to reduce the impact on the environment. That is, the kind of things, a provision for the use of the best available technology, intermittent controls, and other actions which can be taken, but we believe that as a minimum that section 205 should be amended to eliminate, after providing the language which permits variances that violate primary air quality standards and a change in 205 (c) to provide for granting of waivers without notice of hearing, and that section 206 be amended to change the exemption from EPA to actions in effect less than 1 year, which is 6 months, such as presently written.

Third, I am worried about some of the time restraints and requirements for implementing this legislation. Some problems may be in the interpretation, I am not sure. Section 203 provides 15 days to implement a national emergency energy rationing and conservation program. I submit, if I read it correctly, I believe 15 days may well be unrealistic. I think really to bring aboard a viable and effective kind of rationing organization may well take 60 days to put in place, which does not mean that there are actions that can be taken in the meantime to respond to the cutting back in the heating oil situation we are going to have today.